New Testament in a Year

Jesus teaches about the Jewish day of rest

6 On a Jewish day of rest, Jesus and his disciples were walking through some fields where wheat was growing. His disciples began to pick some of the wheat. They were rubbing it between their hands and eating the seeds.

² Some of the Pharisees were walking with them. They said, ‘You should not be doing that on our day of rest. It is against God's Law.’

³ Jesus replied, ‘You have certainly read about what David did one day. He and the men who were with him were hungry. ⁴ He went into the temple. He took the special bread that was there. It is against God's Law for anyone except the priests to eat that bread. But David ate some of it. He gave some of the bread to his men to eat as well.’

⁵ Then Jesus said to them, ‘The Son of Man has authority over the Law about the day of rest.’^[a]

Jesus makes a man well on the day of rest

⁶ On another Jewish day of rest, Jesus went into the Jewish meeting place and he taught the people. A man was there. His right hand had become small and weak and he could not use it. ⁷ Some teachers of God's Law and some Pharisees were watching Jesus carefully. They wanted to find a reason to say that he was doing something wrong. So they watched Jesus to see if he would make the man well on the day of rest. ⁸ But Jesus knew what they were thinking. So he said to the man, ‘Get up and stand in front of everyone.’ The man got up and he stood there. ⁹ Then Jesus said to the people, ‘Let me ask you something. Is it right for us to do good things on our day of rest? Or should we do bad things? Should we save a person's life? Or should we destroy their life?’ ¹⁰ Jesus looked round at everyone. Then he said to the man, ‘Lift up your hand.’ When the man lifted his hand, it became well. He could use it again.

¹¹ Then the Pharisees and the teachers of God's Law were very angry. They began to talk to each other about what they could do to Jesus.

Jesus chooses 12 men

¹² One day Jesus went up a mountain to pray. He remained there all night and he was praying to God. ¹³ In the morning, he asked all his disciples to come to him. Then he chose 12 of them and he called them his apostles.^[b] These are their names:

Jesus teaches people

¹⁷ After Jesus had chosen these 12 men, they all came down the mountain. He stopped and he stood on a flat place. A large crowd of his disciples stood around him. There were also many people from Jerusalem, and from other towns of Judea, and from places on the coast near Tyre and Sidon. ¹⁸ These people had all come to hear Jesus teach. Those people who were ill wanted him to make them well. He also made well those people who had bad spirits. ¹⁹ All the people were trying to touch him, because he was using great power to make each person well.

²⁰ Jesus looked at his disciples. He spoke this message to them:

²² People may hate you, because you believe in me, the Son of Man. They may say bad things against you and make you go away from them. They may say that you are very bad. When that happens, be happy. ²³ God will prepare many good things for you in heaven. So be very happy when people do these bad things to you! Jump up and down because you are so happy. Their ancestors did the same bad things to God's prophets long ago.

²⁶ If people always say good things about you now, it will be very bad for you. Their ancestors also said good things about the false prophets long ago.’